Page 28 of Out of Control

I could see the confusion on Athena’s face. She was probably wondering what the emergency was, and why my mom needed to tell me this mundane information sourgently.

“Eloped. Okay.” I wrote the word down in my notebook. “What was the wife’s name?”

“That’s the important part: he called her Ella Louise.”

There it was.

“Mom, we’ve talked about this before.”

She shook her head in denial. “I know we have, but this is different! The name is so close, and the timeline adds up! This is my baby, your sister! We can finally bring her home, Lukie, this is her! I feel it in my gut!” The tears were welling up in her eyes, but Mom was trying to hold it back in front of a guest, refusing to let them spill down her cheeks.

“I’ll check it out. Where’s the article?”

She picked it up from the coffee table, already cut out of the newspaper and laminated. Mom was nothing if not prepared, and the relief she felt when I accepted the offering was physical, the tension leaving her shoulders in a heavy breath, a single tear escaping down her cheek.

“I think I’d like that coffee after all,” Athena cut in, standing up. “Is the kitchen over there?”

I nodded, grateful that she had enough decency to give us privacy, even if the worst of it was over. When she rounded the corner I leaned forward, talking my mother’s hands in my own.

“I want you to prepare yourself for this to go nowhere,” I told Mom, just as I did every time she thought she found a lead.

Danielle went missing eleven years ago, so a real lead at this point would be a miracle without inside resources. I wouldn’t be likely to find anything of use until I had access to the FBI records on the goings on happening a decade ago within the actual Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Unit.Finding answers, even if we never foundher,all rode on my transfer into that unit.

“I’m prepared. But I can’t just sit around and do nothing!”

“You don’t have to do nothing. You can keep yourself busy, Mom. Go out to eat, join a book club, chat with Mrs. Rosenberg in the backyard over your trowels like you used to.”

She was already shaking her head. “I can’t do that. I need to focus on Dani until we have an answer. We need to know where she is. Tom died without knowing what happened to our baby and I won’t let the same thing happen to me,” she said, invoking my late stepfather’s name.

I glanced up at movement in the doorway, seeing Athena staying mostly out of view, trying not to intrude. There was no point. I nodded her in and she took her place back next to my mom.

“Did Lukie tell you about his half-sister?” Mom asked, wiping at her cheeks and putting on a smile. “She’s so beautiful. Long honey-blonde hair, hazel eyes just like Lukie’s, and just the sunniest personality you’ll ever meet.”

“She sounds wonderful.” Mom’s use of present tense wasn’t lost on me, and neither was the careful way Athena mimicked it.

“She is.”

“Can I show you some pictures?” Mom was already pulling out the photo albums from under the coffee table.

Athena looked up to meet my eyes, nodding her agreement. Although she’d probably make fun of me later for being a mama’s boy, no matter which team she played for, I felt confident she wouldn’t hurt my mother. The kindness sheshowed my mom made my heart beat a little faster, but I did my best to ignore it.

She might be a morally gray, promiscuous, annoying person, but she had enough kindness to go where Mom led, letting her share her heartbreak over Danielle’s disappearance.

Remembering the way Athena clearly dated around, wearing those tiny little dresses that showed off just as much thigh as her skimpy little pajama shorts, I felt the anger rise up in me again. Did she dress like that for Leo Lombardi before cutting the date short? It was hard to imagine she would if she saw his picture first, so maybe it was a blind date? She said someone else set them up.

“Okay, what the heck is going on here?” Athena asked, pointing to one of the pictures. She was smiling widely, but it didn’t meet her eyes. What was she thinking?

“Oh, Lukie had to be about seven or eight I think? Because Dani looks about three. He was going through this phase where he wanted to be a magician, and well, he wasn’t very good at it.”

“Thanks Mom,” I teased, smiling at her. I’m sure the smile didn’t meet my eyes either, but Mom needed a sense of normalcy.

“This was when he was in his escape artist phase of magic, and it didn’t occur to him that swallowing a key—” Oh dear god, it wasn’t really that picture, was it? “—wasn’t helpful if you had to wait for the key to come back out. But he handcuffed himself to his poor sister!”

“What about the spare key?” Athena asked, smiling softly at me. Those blue eyes really were beautiful when she lookedsincere, but she needed to cut that shit out. I didn’t need her pity.

“He gave it to Dani, but three-year-olds are notorious for losing things, so who knows where it ended up!”

“No saw at home to cut them free?” she asked, turning that gentle smile back to my mom.

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